Shelley F. Hall, Managing Director, Catalytic Management

When sales people fail to retain customers, the first thing to investigate is the signal management sends via compensation plans. Compensation plans tell the sales person where they should spend their time and effort. Human nature drives us to do what delivers rewards and money is a big reward. So if the compensation plan tells me that I get a higher commission for new business versus retained or repeat business, guess where I’m going to spend my time?